Babbit eBook

knew that was because of the jealousy of his captain
and he ought to have been a high-ranking officer, he
had that natural ability to command that so very,
very few men have—­and this man came out
into the road and held up his hand and stopped the
buggy and said, ‘Major,’ he said, ’there’s
a lot of the folks around here that have decided to
support Colonel Scanell for congress, and we want you
to join us. Meeting people the way you do in
the store, you could help us a lot.’

“Well, Your Father just looked at him and said,
’I certainly shall do nothing of the sort.
I don’t like his politics,’ he said.
Well, the man—­Captain Smith they used to
call him, and heaven only knows why, because he hadn’t
the shadow or vestige of a right to be called ‘Captain’
or any other title—­this Captain Smith said,
’We’ll make it hot for you if you don’t
stick by your friends, Major.’ Well, you
know how Your Father was, and this Smith knew it too;
he knew what a Real Man he was, and he knew Your Father
knew the political situation from A to Z, and he ought
to have seen that here was one man he couldn’t
impose on, but he went on trying to and hinting and
trying till Your Father spoke up and said to him,
‘Captain Smith,’ he said, ’I have
a reputation around these parts for being one who
is amply qualified to mind his own business and let
other folks mind theirs!’ and with that he drove
on and left the fellow standing there in the road
like a bump on a log!”

Babbitt was most exasperated when she revealed his
boyhood to the children. He had, it seemed, been
fond of barley-sugar; had worn the “loveliest
little pink bow in his curls” and corrupted his
own name to “Goo-goo.” He heard (though
he did not officially hear) Ted admonishing Tinka,
“Come on now, kid; stick the lovely pink bow
in your curls and beat it down to breakfast, or Goo-goo
will jaw your head off.”

Babbitt’s half-brother, Martin, with his wife
and youngest baby, came down from Catawba for two
days. Martin bred cattle and ran the dusty general-store.
He was proud of being a freeborn independent American
of the good old Yankee stock; he was proud of being
honest, blunt, ugly, and disagreeable. His favorite
remark was “How much did you pay for that?”
He regarded Verona’s books, Babbitt’s silver
pencil, and flowers on the table as citified extravagances,
and said so. Babbitt would have quarreled with
him but for his gawky wife and the baby, whom Babbitt
teased and poked fingers at and addressed:

“I think this baby’s a bum, yes, sir,
I think this little baby’s a bum, he’s
a bum, yes, sir, he’s a bum, that’s what
he is, he’s a bum, this baby’s a bum,
he’s nothing but an old bum, that’s what
he is—­a bum!”

All the while Verona and Kenneth Escott held long
inquiries into epistemology; Ted was a disgraced rebel;
and Tinka, aged eleven, was demanding that she be
allowed to go to the movies thrice a week, “like
all the girls.”